Carol A. Rogers, PMHCNS-BC, PhD
Consultant, Joint Commission Resources, Inc. 
Dr. Rogers has more than 30 years of experience in health care, including extensive experience in clinical, leadership, management, and performance improvement areas. She is a certified Advanced Practice Nurse in Adult Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing. She works as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Behavioral Health Services at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, IL and serves as faculty for the Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR) Department of Education. In inpatient behavioral health, she is responsible for staff development, quality of care improvements and patient safety initiatives. She also serves as the chair of the Nursing Research Council there.
Before joining JCR, Dr. Rogers served as an Associate Professor of Nursing at Rush University College of Nursing. In this capacity, she advised graduate students and dissertation committees, taught both graduate and undergraduate nursing students and provided online graduate courses in the leadership curriculum. In addition, Dr. Rogers served as a consultant to an inpatient behavioral health department in Chicago.
In her past work as an administrator over the last 12 years, Dr. Rogers managed behavioral health units in inpatient and outpatient settings as well as surgical ICU and step-down units. In this capacity, she was responsible for clinical and fiscal operations, quality improvement, strategic planning, and budgeting for interdisciplinary staff of inpatient and outpatient services. She also served as a facilitator for multidisciplinary quality improvement teams and projects including restraint reduction in non-psychiatric settings and an alcohol detoxification protocol.
Dr. Rogers began her career in intensive care nursing. She was a member of the United States Army Nurse Corps and served one year at the 24thEvacuationHospital in Long Binh, South Vietnam. At the 24thEvacuationHospital, she was a staff nurse in neurosurgical ICU and charge nurse in the emergency room. Dr. Rogers attained the rank of captain before being honorably discharged. Upon returning to Los Angeles as a civilian, she worked as an assistant head nurse in medical ICU at LA County General Hospital. She has held positions as a psychotherapist, nurse manager, and a clinical specialist in behavioral health.
Dr. Rogers’ research and publications have focused on inpatient suicide risk treatment and women’s mental health issues. She co-authored two articles describing one of the first studies examining one-to-one suicide observation from the perspective of suicidal inpatients. The findings from this study have been referenced in many articles examining this intervention in hospital settings. In addition, she co-authored the social support scale used in the ENRICHD multisite clinical trial examining the effect of treatment for depression and low social support on men and women recovering from a myocardial infarction. Dr. Rogers has published articles on these and other clinical topics in journals such as Psychiatric Perspectives, Journal of Psychosocial Nursing, Journal of Nursing Education, Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation, Research in Nursing and Health, Issues in Mental Health Nursing, and the American Journal of Nursing. (She has also published under the name Dr. Carol Pitula.)
She received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, CA, a master’s of nursing from the UCLA School of Nursing and a doctorate in sociology from The University of Illinois at Chicago.